“Let me be something every blessed minute…so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.” –A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

This is the most unusual Wednesday and Thursday I have ever had on campus. I woke up, took two exams, went to Al’s, where I met my mom, came back to campus and packed up my life. I’m sitting in Zoe, my home for the past nine months and I only see a few traces of the warm, colorful, cozy home Jude and I built. I see our beds, the usual mess of our desks and nutmeg frost colored walls. My mother is sleeping in my bed. There are about eight more hours until we leave Zoe forever. And that’s the hardest thing about the end of freshman year.

Come to think of it, it was also the hardest thing I did at the beginning of freshman year. I left my room. I went to meals, I went to class, I went to Wal-Mart, I visited my friends’ rooms. I didn’t hide out. I branched out. Zoe has been the best possible dorm room, and it’s hard to think that in a few short hours, we’ll never come back. We can barge in on the girls living here next year, but it will be theirs, not ours. Next year, we move on to Zoe II, and another incredible adventure. The walls of Zoe are stripped and there are hardly any traces of the wallpaper of pictures and posters and sexy men except where the paint doesn’t quite match. But our memories of Zoe live on in pictures and videos and a little something we like to call “the document—Birds Chirping”. We’ve left our mark on Zoe and 3FW behind the fire sprinkler pipe on the right side of the room. We know it’s there, even if no one can see it. Zoe will always be ours.

Thank you, Zoe, for a remarkable year. We love you.

Namaste,

–S.

P.S. This will probably be the last post until next semester. Enjoy the summer!